Aether
by Saber Girls
Summary: Response to the SF challenge on LJ. Katara, the first person from her planet in fifty years to have the Talent, sets out with her brother and a thousand year old not-quite-human named Aang to save the galaxy from the Empire of Flames. Zutara, Taang, Sukk


_**Aether**_

by HyperionRising/Saber Girl Jaina

-

**Chapter One: Talent**

-

Over fifty years, and no one with the Talent on the whole planet. In fifty years, Katara was the first person born on Aurora who could use the Aether access implants that everyone received on their sixteenth birthday, just in case.

-

Katara was an optimist, but she was also a realist. She'd gone into the MedCenter knowing this set of implants would do nothing for her. Other than the annual systems upgrade, she wasn't going to get a thing out of this. She'd waved to her friends as she exited the waiting room, telling them once more that they didn't have to wait for her, that she'd meet them in an hour at Jakuna's, the restraint where they were holding her birthday party. Aruakta, the sometimes-ringleader of their little group, blew a raspberry at her and assured her that they'd be fine waiting. Katara grinned and rolled her eyes, then followed the nurse into the Operation PrepRoom.

-

She floated among nodes of information. Her own information, her own memories that she'd chosen to burn onto her implants for clear reference; scholastic notes and lectures and Sokka in compromising situations, mostly. Other info. News, history, the basic encyclopedia model everyone on Aurora was equipped with, plus a few added info modules on subjects that interested her. She could feel the system upgrade seeping through her web, reinforcing connections, improving efficiency. Distantly, the doctor's voice: "Go ahead and activate the other one."

And then she was spinning, screaming but where was her mouth, she was everywhere, nowhere she was-

_Hello?_

No don't talk to me too much too much too much

_What's wrong?_

TOO MUCH

_Whoa! Calm down! I think I can help you, and I think you can help me…_

-

She sat up slowly, looked around. All the medical equipment, including the things that had been bolted down, had been thrown to the edges of the room. Only the table she had been lying on was untouched. Katara turned around and found the doctor and nurse slumped against the wall. A smear of blood marked where the doctor had slid down the wall.

"Shit." Katara didn't curse much, but this seemed like a good time.

She ran over to the doctor, put her hand behind his head to feel the wound. I was deep. Should she be touching it like this? Probably not. And why was the blood cooling? She pulled her hand out to where she could see it.

It was glowing blue.

"Gah!"

"W- What in the world?" this was the nurse, who was blinking rapidly.

"He's.. He's bleeding!"

"… touch the wound."

"What?!"

"Just do it."

She did, and felt it shrink under her touch.

-

She'd managed to call her brother before they decided it was best that she be kept isolated until her guardian arrived, and he'd come, and made such a fuss they'd let him see her. The two of them sat in a small room at the back of the MedCenter, waiting for their grandmother to arrive so they could discuss with the doctors what was to be done with Katara.

"Soooo… you have the Talent."

"Shut up, Sokka."

"You know what this means, right?"

"It means I can heal people and throw stuff around with my brain. It means can access the Aether. It means I can Aether jump a ship. It means-"

"Go back one."

"Aether jumps? Yeah, I guess being able to mess with the fabric of space time is cool, but who's going to teach me to-"

"We can catch up with Dad's fleet."

"… what did you say?"

"We can go to Borealis and find you a teacher."

"That'll take half a year. Dad'll be at Ba Sing Sei by then."

"And with a Talent, an Auroran Talent without the isolationist bullshit of Borealis, how long will it take to catch up to the fleet?"

"… an hour, tops."

"Exactly."

"Let's get out of here before Gran-Gran comes."

-

Out the window and down an alley, Katara paused.

"Wait. There's something I have to do."

"What?" asked Sokka, turning back to her.

"I'm not exactly sure, but it's important. We're going to Docktown."

-

Docktown was not somewhere the sane went. Once upon a time, it had been the center of settlement on Aurora, but that had been over a thousand years ago. Now, it was a cluster of empty permacrete and plasteel structures, inhabited by the mad, the depraved, those who didn't want to be found, and a whole lot of pigeon rats. Katara had had to threaten Sokka with experimenting with her Talent on him to stop him from shoving her back into the MedCenter.

"So, why are we here again?"

"I told you, I don't know. I just know I need to do something here. Over there, to be exact," Katara said, pointing towards a particularly decrepit structure.

"Oh no. No way. I am not letting you-"

"I wonder what would happen if I tried to teleport you into orbit?"

"… Just make it quick.

-

The floor of the basement had a hole in it. That wasn't supposed to be able to happen with permacrete. Katara climbed through the hole and into the three foot tall gap between the floor and the dirt, she started crawling forward.

"Katara? Katara, come back here, this isn't safe!" called Sokka. Katara ignored him and kept going forward. She heard him drop down behind her a few seconds later. She turned on her knees to face him.

"Glad you decided to join me."

"You owe me."

"If you say so." Katara turned back around and put her hand out in front of her to keep crawling. The ground wasn't where it was supposed to be, and she found herself falling forward, tumbling down a steep slope, finally reaching flat ground after what seemed like forever, banging into something cold and metallic.

She groaned as she opened her eyes. It was nearly pitch black. She certainly couldn't see anything. Katara stood, felt her way along the metallic something-or-other she'd banged into. This wasn't what she'd come for. What she'd come for was inside.

"Katara? Katara, where are you?!" She ignored Sokka. Here. There was a door here, and over here a keypad.

"AHahAHahAHahAH!" It seemed Sokka had found the slope. "Oof!"

"Hey, Sokka." Her fingers danced over the keypad in a pattern she hadn't know she knew. The door opened. Light flooded the cave. Sokka came over to stand beside her, to stare into what seemed to be some sort of ship. Katara went through the door, towards another keypad across from the door. Again her fingers danced, and a panel in the wall slid open.

Out fell a boy of maybe fourteen, naked except for a pair of boxers and blue arrow tattoos ending on his hands and the top of his bald head.


End file.
